Cora kept her distance and watched them, arms folded across her chest, legs tight together, face pale.
Vivian glanced into the room. ‘Jesus!’ she blurted. ‘Thank God it didn’t get us!’
Cora and Helen looked at each other. Helen sighed. Cora smirked.
‘Yeah, right,’ she said. ‘Must be something monstrous like a kitten.’
‘Close but no cigar,’ Finley said.
Cora stepped up to the window, bent forward and peered in. ‘Oh, he’s darling. Look at those tiny feet. Isn’t he cute?’ Reaching up through the jagged opening, she released the window’s lock.
‘What are you doing?’ Vivian asked.
‘We want to explore a room, don’t we?’
‘Not that one,’ Abilene said. ‘The squirrel might be cute, but he probably isn’t above biting someone.’ As she spoke, she wandered farther along the balcony. The window of the next room was also broken. ‘We can try here.’
She looked through the shattered glass. The room was bare. She could see its decor. On both sides of the door were enclosures: a closet and a bathroom, she supposed.
‘Any visitors?’ Finley asked, coming up beside her.
‘Looks okay.’ She reached in and snapped the lock open. Then she shoved upward on a sash bar. The window didn’t budge, so she pounded it with the heels of her hands. It skidded up. When it was open all the way, she swung up a foot and used the sole of her shoe to sweep away the shards of glass littering the inside sill. They clinked and shattered on the floor. And crunched under her shoes when she climbed into the room.
‘Why don’t you check around before we come in?’ Cora said from the window.
‘Alone?’
‘Don’t be a woos,’ Finley called.
Abilene walked across the room. On her left was a sliding door. She rolled it open and found a shallow closet with a shelf and clothes bar. Nothing inside. Turning around, she stepped to the other door and opened it.
She saw a tile floor, a sink with a mirror above it, and nothing else but darkness.
‘You can come in now, ladies. No boogeyman, rats, or other surprises.’
CHAPTER NINE
After their close brush with Hardin, Helen wanted to wash her foot. Abilene wouldn’t let her, fearing that the sound of the faucet might carry through the building. So the girl merely dried her sneaker and sock as best she could with paper towels.
Then they returned to the student bookstore. Abilene twisted the lock button to secure the entrance. They hid among shelves near the back, and waited.
Nearly an hour passed before they heard the distant sound of a door thudding shut.
‘Think that was Hardin?’ Helen asked.
‘Might’ve been the custodians showing up. Or just her poor victim leaving.’ They waited longer. They heard no more sounds from anywhere in the building. At a quarter till ten, Abilene said, ‘We’d better go out and scout around, make sure nobody’s here.’
She led the way to the door, unlocked it in case they might need to return, then inched it open and looked into the dark hallway. ‘Coast is clear,’ she whispered, and stepped out.
On her way to the center staircase, she felt terribly exposed and vulnerable. She wanted to run. She walked slowly, instead, listening, setting her feet down softly. At last, she reached the stairs. Helen stayed close behind her as she climbed.
‘What if Hardin hasn’t left?’ Helen whispered.
‘Shhhhh.’
From the landing, Abilene could see that the second floor hallway was dark. She continued to the top, and peered around a corner to the right. Hardin’s office was the third one down. No light came from under its door or shone through the open glass transom.
Stepping forward, she checked all the offices along the corridor. They were dark.
‘Looks like we’re in business,’ she said.
Helen followed her to the door of Hardin’s office.
Abilene tried the knob. ‘Locked.’
‘What did you expect?’
‘I just hope she’s not sitting in there, meditating in the dark.’
‘Don’t say that.’
‘Go on down the hall.’
‘Huh?’
‘Go to the stairs. Get ready to make a run for it.’
‘What’re you gonna do?’
‘Go.’
Helen hurried to the far end of the hall. When she stopped at the head of the stairs, Abilene knocked on Hardin’s door.
No harsh voice demanded to know who was there.
Abilene willed herself to hear the slightest sound from inside the office: the creak of a chair, a footstep, breathing, a stir of fabric. She heard nothing. In spite of the silence, she half expected the door to fly open in front of her face, Hardin to reach out and grab her. She ached to bolt.
She wondered what she was doing here in the first place.
Risking expulsion — or worse.
She could’ve been safe, right now, back at the dorm. Even better, she could’ve been in the park making out with Robbie.
Instead, she was on this crazy mission. Not really to avenge Barbara, though that was part of it. The real purpose was simply to do something wild for the fun of it.
This is the last time I get myself into something like this, she told herself. I don’t care if the others think I’m a chicken. I don’t care who dares who.
Madness.
Then she realized that nothing had happened in response to her knock.
She hurried down the hall and joined Helen at the top of the stairs.
‘Are you out of your gourd?’ Helen asked.
‘We both are. But I had to make sure she wasn’t there, didn’t I? Come on.’ They trotted downstairs and stopped at the double doors leading outside. Abilene checked her wristwatch. Five till ten. ‘Maybe they’re early,’ she said. She pushed one of the horizontal bars and eased the door open.
Finley, sitting on a bench in the darkness under an oak tree, raised a hand in greeting. She stood and picked up her video camera. A few strides took her to the end of the bench. Facing the wooded lawn that bordered the campus, she swung an arm overhead.
Moments later, Cora and Vivian appeared on one of the walkways. They were each carrying a grocery sack. They met up with Finley and the three of them, glancing this way and that, hurried to the stoop of the administration building. They rushed up the concrete stairs. The moment they were inside, Abilene pulled the door shut.
‘How’d it go?’ Cora whispered.
‘Hardin showed up.’
‘Christ,’ Vivian muttered.
‘Yeah, we were…’
‘Tell us later,’ Cora said. ‘Let’s get into her office first. Nobody’s in the building, I take it?’
‘We don’t think so. The custodians never did show up.’ Turning to Finley, she said, ‘They were supposed to be in and out by ten, remember?’
‘I’m not an expert on their schedule. But they’re in Waller right now.’
Waller Hall was the science building on the other side of the campus.
‘As long as they aren’t here,’ Cora said, and started up the stairs. '
‘We’d better keep an eye out for them,’ Abilene warned.
‘How many are there?’ Helen asked.
‘Just two who come here.’
‘That’s not so bad,’ Cora said.
‘It only takes one to spot us and we’re dead,’ Abilene said. They stopped in front of Hardin’s office door. Cora set her bag on the floor. ‘Give me some light.’
Abilene switched on her flashlight and aimed it into the sack. Cora’s denim purse was there among bottles and plastic bags of snacks. Crouching, the girl opened it. She took out a credit card. ‘This oughta be good,’ Finley said.
Card in hand, Cora tried to loid the lock. After a while, she muttered, ‘Shit. It always works in the movies.’
‘This ain’t the movies,’ Finley pointed out.
‘How’ll we get in?’ Helen asked.
‘Maybe this is our cue to quit,’ Vivian suggested.
‘No way,’ Cora said. ‘I had to shell out twenty bucks to get that guy to buy the booze.’